If you want to increase your map pack ranking you should definitely have these 10 local citation sources completely done.  It's imperative that you have your citations done to be able to compete with other local businesses.

Citations are crucial for your SEO (Search Engine Optimization) and website visibility.  In some cases citations can also help your business grow because they aggregate web traffic.  A few of the most popular citations are Facebook, Yelp, Yellow Pages, and Foursquare.

Surely, you've heard of Facebook and Yelp, but how about Manta, EZlocal, Connecticut Business, Superpages or Trip Advisor?  There are over 500 different citation sources throughout the web.  We're going to narrow it down to the Top 10 Citation Sources for your local business. 

Citations are simply mentions of your business's name, address, and phone number.  There can occur throughout the web!  I can hook myself up with a Citation right here:

Will Power Marketing
23 Backus Ave #3254
Danbury, CT 06810
(203) 697-8227

Certain SEO Bloggers believe that you don't even need the phone number in the citation for it to help your online visibility.

White Spark has a great list of citation sources, but our SEO Specialists have found a much more complete list of citation sources.

Our Top 10 Local Citations Include:

• Google My Business
• Yelp
• Facebook
• Chamber of Commerce (not your local chamber)
• Superpages
• Hotfrog
• Trip Advisor (if your business qualifies)
• Instagram (very powerful)
• Hotfrog
• Angies List

Focus on these 3 things every week and your business's online presence will greatly improve!  You can do these three easy tasks every week to grow your online visibility over time.  A couple benefits of greater online visibility include: more website traffic, increased leads and more customers.

Here's 3 Easy Things you can do RIGHT NOW to improve your online visibility. 

Time to Complete: 2 minutes

Ease of Difficulty:  Very Easy

Google loves when you use what they have to offer.  By modifying, updating and adding to your google my business listing it shows them that you’re an thriving business. 

So go ahead and take a picture of yourself in your work uniform, a new dish you serve, or happy client of yours and add it to your google my business listing. 

**If you have trouble finding your google my business section…  You’re not alone!  Recently they removed it from the other apps so you’ll have to login to your gmail account then type in the browser business.google.com to bring up the business listing section.

Time to Complete: 10-15 minutes

Ease of Difficulty:  Moderate

Treat your website like a baby.  Nurture it with new content, back links, citations and social signals so it can grow.  Many agencies push massive amounts of content to rank websites.  Simply type “elephants” into the search bar.  Notice how Wikipedia pops up first.

No one will ever read through those 10,000 words about elephants, except for google!
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Take 10-15 minutes and slap together 250-500 words about your business, city, or related topic.  Throw that new content on the homepage, about page or simply add another page.  

Time to Complete: 5-7 minutes

Ease of Difficulty:  Easy

Citations are basically your businesses NAME, ADDRESS and PHONE NUMBER listed in different directories across the internet.  The more often your NAP (Name, Address, Phone Number) is listed the more powerful your map listings will be. 

Example Citations:

Take 5 minutes out of your day to get add on a citation or two.  Make sure you grab the Top 10 Citation Sources first.  

Take 20 minutes today to bang out this easy list of tips to increase website's online visibility.  The first time you create a citation or crank through 250 words of content it might take longer than 20 minutes, but within a couple weeks of consistently doing it you'll be powering through the work in 10 flat. 

As always, if you have any questions about your website's online visibility feel free to contact our website specialists today.